Crisler Center banners feature my design (Posted here on MGoBlog!)

Submitted by Wolverine Devotee on

In the beautiful new pictures of Crisler Center, I was curious to see if they had changed the designs of the outdated looking championship banners. I posted a thread here back in March of newly designed championship banners that could potentially replace the then-current ones. I said I was going to send them Dave Brandon. (Link to thread)

I looked at the photo gallery and I'll be damned. They used my design. This may or not qualify as a cool story bro moment but it feels pretty special to be a part of Crisler Center and also MGoBlog being a part of it now too.

Exhibit A- National champions banner features the exact design I sent Dave Brandon to a T. The official NCAA font, NATIONAL CHAMPIONS in block letters, the year with the modern looking Block M underneath it.

Exhibit B- The conference championship banner design I sent had the new B1G logo on all of them in Maize. The full season instead of just one year (ex: 2011-12 instead of 2012) in Maize and the modern Block M underneath. There are minor changes in the actual banners. The B in B1G is blue with Maize outline like the home football jersey patches, the year is abbreviated to just 2012 or 1984 instead of the example I listed above.

Other then that, they look pretty darn similar. Those are just two sets of banners. I have yet to see if they used my idea for Honored Five, Final Four or NIT banners.

go16blue

October 30th, 2012 at 9:05 PM ^

Pretty fucking cool that they used your designs. Also pretty fucking weird that you emailed them and the first you are finding out about it is now.

LB

October 30th, 2012 at 9:23 PM ^

reprobate for the designs after he appropriated them from you. I think you should have lifetime season tickets. In addition, Brian and staff should receive something, since MGoBlog was the vehicle. Last, we all know MGoBlog would be nothing if it were not for it's hard-working members. We are certainly deserving of a munificent gift.

jmblue

October 31st, 2012 at 5:28 PM ^

Not to be a jerk, but is it possible that it's all a concidence, and that it had nothing to do with your email?  I could have predicted that they'd change the banners to put the new Big Ten logo on there.  That's not really a shocker.

 

gomaize11

October 30th, 2012 at 11:40 PM ^

I know you are being sarcastic, but it really wouldn't surprise me too much if he actually was on MGo, though likely in a "lurker" sense. From his time at Dominoes I am sure Mr Brandon is familiar with the Six Sigma (6S) methodology. One of the main principles of 6S is understanding the "voice of the customer" to ensure product/project quality.

MGoBlog provides a unique live look into the fan base that would be difficult to pass up as the de facto CEO of Michigan athletics.

1464

October 31st, 2012 at 8:02 AM ^

Anyone who thinks that people tied into Michigan athletics don't regularly visit this site does not understand the fishbowl allure of having direct feedback presented by customers who know their product the best.  There is NO WAY that players and administrators do not come here as the rule, not the exception.  The only people I would assume do not visit the site are the coaches, as they are the type to eschew the internet as a whole.

That being said, hi Mr. Brandon, please bring back the halo and give us a cute mascot with an oversized head.  I'm sure I speak for the masses here.

Newbs

October 30th, 2012 at 9:11 PM ^

That's awesome they used your design. From these and many others pictures i've seen Crisler looks stunning. Hopefully will be able to make it to a few games this year

goblue16

October 30th, 2012 at 9:23 PM ^

It's nice to see an athletic director that listens to the fans. Great job!! Try talking to him about paiting the national and BIG championships on the structures in the big house. Way to plain and I think it would show the tradition of Michigan Football

Wolverine Devotee

October 30th, 2012 at 9:31 PM ^

The regents approved a $6 million Michigan Stadium painting project set to begin 2/1/2013 and I think I have a pretty good idea that that's what they are going to do.

I've been thinking about wanting to get championship years on the boxes ever since they were put up. My thought is that it could be National Championship years on the West box and B1G Championship years on the East box. Now how they should arrange them is a little hard to calculate.

Lucky Socks

October 30th, 2012 at 9:33 PM ^

Very cool, but you must be awesome at Where's Waldo.  I can barely see the chairs in the foreground and you're spotting the details on the banner.  Impressive.  

Bando Calrissian

October 30th, 2012 at 9:55 PM ^

Pardon me if I think it's a little bit amateur-hour for a major college athletic department to use unsolicited spec work from an amateur graphic designer without acknowledgment or notification.  Not only is it a bit lazy, but it's dishonest at best on their part, and insulting to people who actually get paid to generate designs.

Cool story, bro, sure.  But there's a reason why professional graphic designers get bent out of shape by spec work, especially done by amateurs.

See:  http://www.no-spec.com/faq/

MGoBender

October 31st, 2012 at 8:13 AM ^

This.

There's no way to make this not sound like an A-hole remark, but...

The OP's designs were nothing special or groundbreaking. If you told a group of 50 people to make a design, I would say 10 would come up with something reasonably similar.

So, no, I don't think the AD used the OP's design. I'd be shocked if anyone of importance ever saw the OP's email.

TruBluMich

October 31st, 2012 at 5:39 AM ^

As a professional graphic designer I will have to say your the only person in my field that gets upset about it, that I've ever heard of.  I even asked before posting to make sure I wasn't out of the loop and everyone I talked to said they don't care.  NOW, what they do get upset about is people taking what they created and adding Arial font at the bottom and calling it thier own, that really gets us bent out of shape.  It's not like the athletic department sent him a request for the work ,was inquiring about the work or had a contest to see who could design the best banner.  He freely sent the work in, no promises, nothing that even comes close to spec work.  So am I upset about someone sending in an idea they had on how the banners could be designed and the athletic department creating something similare, no and neither were any of the other people I asked.

As for the designs them selves, I really don't see that much of a diffrence between the old ones and the new ones, enough to say they absolutley took your idea and you should be claiming credit, but if they did that's awesome.

Atlanta_Blue

October 30th, 2012 at 10:12 PM ^

but it seems like the new banners are just the old banners with updated logos/corporate fonts.  Which is basically what your suggestions were.  Kind of an obvious evolution of the banners.

wile_e8

October 30th, 2012 at 10:15 PM ^

OK, I'll be the Debbie Downer. You linked to the original suggestion post, and in the comments was a picture of the old banners:

So the only difference between the old banners and the new banners is the updated B1G logo. And both have one year, as opposed to the ones you posted that have the full season. So I think it's pretty unlikely your suggestions had anything to do with it, they probably just decided to update the logos on the old ones along with the renovation.

OMG Shirtless

October 30th, 2012 at 10:28 PM ^

Do you have a bigger picture of the new banners somewhere?  It may just be me, but that picture is so small, and even blowing it up you can't tell for certain which block M they used but it looks pretty darn close to the one in wile_e8's picture.

OMG Shirtless

October 30th, 2012 at 10:24 PM ^

Nothing against the OPs designs however the banners were almost certainly going to look like this regardless of whether or not he submitted his design. All they really did was update the fonts to the current version they've been using and the Big Ten logo. It looks as if they even used the logo with the 1G filled in and the B as just an outline as opposed to the OP's suggestion

goblue16

October 30th, 2012 at 10:47 PM ^

Confused though? i thought they were going to add a curtain around the upper bowl for womens bball game. 

Edit: The curtain is actually up u can see it better in the pics on mgoblue

JD_UofM_90

October 30th, 2012 at 11:33 PM ^

Are pretty funny. They say how hokes no visit policy is not fair. Then they describe how Mack Brown and Urban do it right. The thing is what they are describing as "good" is exactly Hokes policy. They want hokes visit policy to be bad, wrong, unfair so bad, they just make up their own view of it (eg hoke pressures kids to commit early) to show that Ohio is sooooo much better. Lol. Their ignorance is amusing.